Will Sawyer was one of the best FBI agents dealing with situations where people were held hostage by various aggressors or terrorists, and he was the leader of such a special agency intervention team. Now, however, he retired from an incident after which he was left without a foot and headed for other less dangerous ways to earn his living, taking care of the evaluation of the high-rise buildings, the so- clouds, in terms of safety for occupants and uncle.
He receives the offer to travel to China to assess the highest and considered to be the safest skyscraper in the world. After a period spent there, he realizes in the most terrible way that this skyscraper is anything else but safe! When a terrible fire occurs at an appreciable height in skyscrapers, Will is scapegoat for this incident and everyone is trying to get hold of it. That, however, is the smallest of the problems Will faces, because at several floors above the place where the fire started, there is also his family who has no chance of getting down, and he must do it in such a way that escape from those who follow him and save his family.